Detailed contribution information
| Contribution title | The neural scars of adversity: how do different kinds of adversity predict the development of grey and white matter structure? |
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| Contribution code | D2.102 |
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| Form of presentation | Poster |
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| Abstract |
Adversity is a key environmental factor that can significantly affect brain development and has been linked to long-term alterations in cognitive and social functioning as well as increased risk for mental health disorders. Research has found differences in grey and white matter measures in adolescents who experienced different types of adversity. However, which brain structure, grey or white matter, is most vulnerable to adversity remains unknown. This project aims to investigate whether distinct patterns of grey and white matter development during adolescence can be explained by exposure to different adverse environments. Using growth mixture model, we identified developmental classes for grey matter volume and white matter fractional anisotropy. This method allowed us to extract individual intercepts and slopes for each developmental class. We then examined how different measures of adversity, drawn from self-report questionnaires, predict the likelihood of belonging to the previously identified classes. We leveraged two large longitudinal datasets: the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (around 12,000 children at 10-12-14) and the IMAGEN study (around 1,400 adolescents at 14-19-22) as a replication cohort ensuring the robustness of our findings. We identified the distribution of latent subgroups of brain development (i.e. specific classes for grey and white matter trajectories). Using both positive and negative measures of environment, we observed specific associations between previous experiences of adversity and changes in brain structure in both grey matter volume and white matter fractional anisotropy. Adversity predicted both the likelihood of belonging to a particular developmental subgroup, and further explained individual differences in growth within those subgroups. These findings demonstrate the importance of allowing heterogeneity in modeling brain trajectories of a population to identify the impact of different environments. This study contributes to the existing literature in both the field of developmental neuroscience, showing the multiple patterns of brain structure development, and theories on how adversity gets under the skin. |